


eyes down, watching my footing

by Adsecula



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21877588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adsecula/pseuds/Adsecula
Summary: My part of a Dark Matter gift exchange!For commodorecliche, I sure do hope you’ll like it. ^o^
Relationships: Gus Balfour/Jack Miller
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	eyes down, watching my footing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [commodorecliche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commodorecliche/gifts).



> My part of a Dark Matter gift exchange!  
> For commodorecliche, I sure do hope you’ll like it. ^o^

**Jack Miller’s journal**

**10 th October**

⁂

I can’t sleep, so I’m sitting on my bed and writing.

It’s a dumb thing, really.

There’s a bit of sandpaper outside that has gotten loose. The wind keeps flapping it against the bunkroom wall. It makes such an awful scraping noise, like someone is clawing at the walls.

_Tap, tap, tap._

It’s driving all of us a little crazy. Only Algie is still trying to sleep, but I can hear him making frustrated noises in his throat every now and then. I wish he’d get up and just read a book instead, like Gus is doing. He’s annoying me almost as much as the tarpaper, with all his huffing and puffing.

Gus says we’ll fix the wall up when the weather calms down a little. Not that we’re having a storm, exactly, but there’s a violent gust coming from the north, which dies down every once in a bit, but has kept us mostly indoors for two days now.

It’s very interesting to watch from the window: the way the wind swirls up the snow and pelts it against anything remotely upright. But it made doing the readings today a real hell of a job. It felt like a million little shards of ice were trying to push me onto the frozen ground.

So it’s no good trying any outdoor maintenance in that kind of wind. Not unless it’s something potentially dangerous to the stability of the cabin, which a bit of flapping paper decidedly is not.

Though that does make me wonder how we’ll manage when proper winter sets in. I mean the kind of wild, uncontrollable bursts of icy blasts, like Eriksson had warned us about.

I guess we’ll soon find out.

_Tap, tap, tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

That’s how it sounds. Irregular, pervasive, vaguely upsetting.

The first time I’d heard it, I leaped right out of my bed.

At first, I’d honestly thought one of the huskies had somehow escaped. There’s few things in life I would like less than to wake up and find all my communications equipment chewed up by a dog. (Or worse, as none of the huskies have been house-trained.)

Then I couldn’t help imagining it was something else: that some unseen thing was wandering about the cabin. The grating noise really had sounded just like footsteps, rattling all over the wooden floorboards. But it wasn’t, of course, because it faded as soon as the wind died down.

What bothers me the most is what happened afterwards.

When the silence fell thickly around the cabin, I felt gripped by a sudden, unspeakable dread. I can’t rightly explain it.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I could hardly breathe.

I just kept my eyes at the top of my bunk, my whole body rigid and frozen into place. I didn’t want to be _seen_. By what, I don’t know. I don’t understand what my brain was trying to process.

All I could think of was _don’t look out of the window, please don’t look out of the window, don’t let it see you’re awake, don’t look out of the window, don’t look out of the window…_

Until suddenly it passed. I exhaled a deep breath, one I wasn’t even aware I’d been holding back.

I still don’t know what came over me.

I guess it’s a natural panic, perhaps. For anyone who hasn’t experienced the utter silence of the arctic night, it feels unnatural and almost frightening. Back in London, I was used to all sorts of noises, even in the dead of night. Trucks making early deliveries, drunken men dropping empty bottles into the street… The lonely environment here is as much of a shock to me as anything.

Whatever it was – that strange, deeply unpleasant dread – it left me feeling weak and confused. I fumbled against my blankets and sleeping bag, wanting to pry myself loose, to go find something to drink.

I was suddenly dreadfully thirsty.

What I remember next is how Gus got up, abruptly, without any hesitation; he was as tense and alert as if he were a soldier out on a mission. First he lit one of the lanterns. Then he poured a glass of water from the jug at the tables and took a long drink. He hesitated, then poured out water into a second glass.

He crossed the room and knelt near my bunk.

‘Jack, are you awake?’ He asked in a whisper.

‘Hard not to be’, I replied, keeping my voice equally quiet. ‘What was that racket? Something broke outside?’

‘I think so’, Gus said. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. ‘We’ll have to check, in case one of the huskies…’

As if on cue, the doghouse erupted in a series of barks and howls. They startled me almost as badly as the scraping noises had.

God, I don’t know why my nerves are so frayed tonight.

I hate to remember how hard I gripped Gus by his shoulder. I did it without even thinking about it. I just as quickly let go of him, but it was already too late. I was really embarrassed, of course, though Gus took it in stride.

He didn’t comment on why I was acting like some frightened little boy. He just nodded sympathetically and wordlessly handed me the glass of water. I downed it in two gulps.

I’ve noticed he’s the most observant of us. He’s always the first to find a way to ease over any kind of social faux pas, and he’s the first to try patching up other people’s quarrels and tensions. I used to really dislike that, knowing he was acting nice to help me out.

Now it’s different. I think he’s just genuinely that kind.

He’s a good man, Gus.

‘I’ll go see what’s upsetting the dogs’, he said. I didn’t even have time to reply, and he was already up and heading off towards the hallway. Maybe it’s a trait that’s been drilled into him, that resoluteness. His family has a long history of military service. Or maybe Gus is just a natural leader.

I followed, and dumbly watched him put on his boots and gloves, his woollen hat and feather jacket. 

Jack the eager schoolboy, following bold young Gus into the great unknown. Jack the idiot, unable to handle a bit of wind making scary noises.

Gus abruptly spoke to me. ‘Are you feeling quite alright, Jack?’

‘I’m fine’, I said, as indignantly as I could muster. ‘I just haven’t even properly woken up yet. Wait up a moment and I’ll go with you.’

‘Don’t’, he told me. ‘Stay inside and… wait for me to get back.’ He added: ‘No need for two of us to be out in the cold.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. Don’t worry.’

‘OK, but…’

‘If I get myself stuck in a snowdrift out there, Jack, I promise you’ll be the first man I’ll call.’

‘I’m serious’, I said sternly.

‘I know, I know. I am, too. Look, I’ll certainly call if I need you to come help me with the dogs.’

He stomped out almost cheerily. I quickly shut the door behind him, made my way through the darkness along the unpleasantly-shaped lumps of gear and equipment, and resolved to watch him from the main window.

As luck would have it, the wind rose again just as he was out. I had to strain to see anything.

_Tap, tap, tap._

_Tap, tap._ _Tap, tap, tap._

For a second a shadow passed by the old bear post, then Gus came into my view. His Tilley lamp bobbed in the wind, throwing stark light onto the ground. The snow flickered around him like fireflies.

Gus waved at me.

I waved back.

I lost sight of him a few minutes later, but I could hear the huskies going mad with joy through my wall. Gus talked to them a bit and didn’t seem to find anything amiss. Then I heard him stepping back on the boardwalk, carefully examining the wall with his gloves.

He made slow progress back, his every footfall a careful, measured movement against the frosted planks.

I couldn’t open the door for him, because I got side-tracked by Algie, who demanded to know what we had been up to. As if he hadn’t been awake the whole time and avoiding any work. After all, he’s the one supposed to be in charge of the dogs, isn’t he?

I exchanged a few friendly words with him anyway. I suddenly felt bad about how little I had done myself. Without Gus, we’d both still be quaking in our beds, waiting for the weak sliver of sunlight that passes for morning these days.

When Gus finally returned, he found me sitting on my bed. I was wrapped up in all my blankets like a grumpy old man, cradling the glass of water he’d given me. I hadn’t even thought to refill it.

Yet instead of resenting my inaction while he did all the hard work, Gus nearly doubled over himself with laughter. He told me my face was a sight to behold: I looked almost blue with indignation. I didn’t mind him cackling at me, because he always does it with such good-natured amusement.

The truth is I still felt so _angry_ at my own earlier panic. Especially because I let it be noticed by Gus.

‘Only a loose corner of tarpaper, high up on the wall.’ Gus told us. ‘We’ll have to nail it back. I suggest leaving it to when the weather allows us easier access.’

‘Oh, jolly good!’ Algie said. ‘It could have been worse.’

‘Yes, it could have. I’d been sure one of the dogs had snuck in to pay us a visit’, I said.

‘And you weren’t prepared to take the intrusion in a sentimental way?’ Gus said, smiling.

‘Not at all’, I grinned back. ‘I already imagined it doing unspeakable things in my wireless area.’

Gus snorted.

‘Now if that’s all’, Algie interrupted, ‘I’d like to try getting some sleep.’

It was somehow much easier for us to function with the wind outside, regardless of the constant tapping noise drilling itself into our heads. As if the mood in the cabin was a staleness that we needed to air out, the north wind had cleared out some lingering feeling of _badness_.

It had swept it all right away from our cabin and back into the sea.

We talked for a while, Gus and I, using my bunk as a couch. Later he went to sit at the table. He’s reading one of the books he brought with us, the one about the natural history of Spitzbergen. He told me he couldn’t imagine going back to sleep. I heartily agreed.

I of course took to writing. It gives me something to do with my hands.

It calms me.

I never mentioned to Gus the way I’d frozen up, too afraid to look out of the window, for fear of what I might see looking back at me in the dead silence.

**Author's Note:**

> ((I messed up royally with editing the chapters, so I do hope you won't mind if I put the rest up tomorrow!))


End file.
